Wading In

By the way . . . we're still at war By Kelvin Wade April 28, 2011 I was recently at the park with my 6-year-old grandson, Vika, when my BlackBerry rang. It was Vika's dad, David, calling from Iraq. David, who previously served in the U.S. Army, now works as a private contractor on a U.S. base in Iraq. I put Vika on the phone so he could talk with his dad. Afterward, I spoke with David and he was blunt about life in his current camp. They were under frequent attack. It was quite different from his previous trips to Iraq. I've always appreciated talking with him about the conditions on the ground in Iraq, the morale of soldiers he works with and other things you don't see on the news. It's kept me remembering the thousands of American soldiers and contractors in harm's way. Since that conversation, photojournalist Tim Hetherington was killed in Misrata, Libya. Hetherington co-directed the Academy Award-nominated documentary 'Restrepo' with Sebastian Junger...

Fear junk food, not the government By Kelvin Wade April 14, 2011 Radio talk shows and the blogosphere erupted early this week when it was reported that Little Village Academy, a public school in Chicago, banned students from bringing their lunch and required them to buy a healthy lunch from the school at $2.25 a pop. The chattering class said this was more nanny government run amok. Conservative blogs and hosts railed about 'Michelle Obama's America' and her 'war on dessert.' One commentator mentioned 'jackboots' as if trying to get children to eat healthy meals is tantamount to Nazism and fascism. I agree that banning sack lunches is a matter of good intentions going too far. It seems like an idea cooked up by a food contractor. (In fact, a University of Michigan study published in the December 2010 American Heart Journal found that children who ate school lunches were 29 percent more likely to be obese than kids who brought lunch from home.) But using the ...

Thugs not welcome at ballpark By Kelvin Wade April 07, 2011 Bryan Stow, a 42-year-old paramedic from Santa Cruz, went to watch his beloved San Francisco Giants open the season against the dreaded Los Angeles Dodgers. After being jumped and pummeled by a couple of Dodgers fans after the game in the parking lot, he is in a medically induced coma with a fractured skull and brain damage. There is a $100,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the perpetrators. Police believe 100 onlookers witnessed the assault. How can anyone watch something like that and not intervene? A dozen guys could have put an end to the assault. I understand intervening in an assault is dangerous. People are afraid to get involved. They don't know if the assailants are armed. And one thing worse than one person beaten unconscious is two people beaten unconscious. But 100 people? Fortunately, incidents of this severity aren't common. But violence at sporting events is all too commo...